


Frilly Cakes

by KeeperLavellan



Category: Dragon Age Inquisition - Fandom
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Bakery, Alternate Universe- Message Sent, F/M, Frilly Cakes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-19
Updated: 2015-04-19
Packaged: 2018-03-24 20:50:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3783925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KeeperLavellan/pseuds/KeeperLavellan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A day in the life of a Dalish baker, and a few musings on her favorite customer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Frilly Cakes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Aicosu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aicosu/gifts).



I could pull my own espresso, I really could, but then I’d still be half asleep on my walk to work. Wouldn’t have anything to warm my hands along the way, or Dagna’s infectious smile to cheer me— girl was a shot of espresso all on her own, nothing but giggles and bounce even at six in the gods forsaken morning.

The coffee shop didn’t really open until seven, but with the foodservice guy parked out front I’d have no trouble sneaking in. I hesitated for just a moment at the crosswalk before plunging ahead. Fuck it. I wanted a latte.

Dagna glanced worriedly at the door when the bell jangled, then relaxed with recognition. Her index fingers danced between me and the espresso machine a few times, one eyebrow raised in a silent question. I grinned sheepishly, then made myself useful by holding the door for Tomwise while he wheeled in the crates of milk, boxes of paper cups, and whatnot while she made my drink.

“On the house,” she chirped a few minutes later, presenting the latte with a flourish. The design on top looking suspiciously like the curve of Andruil’s bow, and I grinned.

“Turnabout’s fair play.”

She winked, “I’m counting on it!”

It was our little routine, an unspoken arrangement of the past few months, a blackmarket exchange of sugar and caffeine.

“On your way to work?” Tom asked, leaning onto the marble counter beside me while Dagna cut his check.

“Yeah, you got anything for me?”

“Cherries and to-go boxes. Hop in,” he nodded to the truck idling outside.

“Ma serannas. You too Danga!”

I jumped to hold the door again as Tomwise dragged his dolly out to the truck, then climbed in on the passenger side. It was a mess of cigarette boxes and invoice duplicates, empty drink bottles and a cookie wrapper that I snatched up with a suspicious glare.

“Wow, cheating on me.”

He tossed his clipboard on the torn leather bench between us, not bothering with his seatbelt.

“A moment of weakness, beautiful.”

“Ain't it always.”

The truck lurched away from the curb, rattling down the crowded street at nearly the same speed I’d have walked it. I took a cautious sip of my latte, fearful that he’d break suddenly in the morning rush. Tomwise was a reasonably good guy, though I hardly ever saw him; he worked with a national distributor, so I only bothered his rep for things the local market couldn’t provide.

“So what’s the deal with these cherries?”

“Antivan! Threnn’s been promising them for weeks, looks like she finally pulled through.”

“She usually does. You got a problem with good ol’ Ferelden cherries?”

I laughed. “Not at all! Just playing the field.”

“Atta girl.”

Tomwise double parked where some assholes ignored the Loading Zone sign, and I hopped out to unlock the front door. I shifted my drink to my left hand and fished out my fob. I’d only two keys on the chain: one to my apartment and the other to Enaste. The bolt tumbled and I flew in to disarm the building, returning just as Tom was shouldering his way through the door.

“Downstairs?”

“If you please.”

The shop was tiny, six two-tops and a handful of seats at a coffee bar, leaving the kitchen to be shoved into a creepy basement that I swear to gods must have been dug out in the Storm Age. It was all rough limestone and exposed pipes, but perpetually cool and perfect for slow rising doughs and chocolate.

I gave Tomwise a reasonable head start to ease his dolly down the stairs, then followed after. He made for the walk-in, while I settled at the make-shift “office” set up on a busted lowboy.

“What’s the damage?”

There was a brief pause before he called out, “Forty-two thirty.”

I filled out as much of the check as I could without the invoice, then waited to finish up the rest once I had the paperwork. Before sending him off, I grabbed a small box of teacakes and we bounded up the stairs.

“Stop eating mass produced shit.”

He took the package with a grin, “And here I was hoping to taste your cherries.”

“Maybe next time, perv.”

Tom winked and I locked the door behind him. Viuus would be in to open up in another hour; elven pastries weren't a big morning thing, so I’d been mercifully freed from a life on third shift at an Orlesian bakery. All in all, I’d lucked out with Enaste.

Most elven bakeries were either mom ’n pop affairs big on charm but abysmal from a culinary perspective, or human-run establishments that thought putting a shit-ton elfroot in everything made them alienage-chic. Finding a place that actually respected elven tradition while keeping pace in the modern world was something of a shock.

The owners were elvhen as fuck, a pair of doctors who’d wanted to show the world that knife-ears could crank out pastries every bit as fine as those in Val Royeaux— and that was perfect, because that’s where I’d trained. They gave me room to play, and while I had a soft spot for all the little Dalish things I’d grown up with, I kept my favorite Orlesian pastries in rotation so the (inevitably) human reviewers wouldn’t write us off.

The unique combination of homespun Dalish treats and fancy human fare made us something of a rarity, and if I believed in the Creators I’d be thanking them daily. It was amazing how few restaurants wanted to hire an elven pastry chef, much less one with tits and tats. Sure, every chef worth his salt had two full sleeves a job-killer on each hand, but a girl with a faceful of bloodink? Apparently _that_ pushed the limits of good taste.

It didn’t matter now. Enaste was home in a way no job had ever been, and it’d take another Blight to drive me off. I’d built up a little following in the city, and loved the familiar routine I’d fallen into. The rest of the day, like every other, passed in a blur of butter, sugar, and social media— or “enastegram” as Neria called it.

She’d asked me to post updates for the bakery online, and however much I thought I’d hate it, I’d become absolutely addicted to all the digital thumbs-up validating my every move. It didn’t even have to even be dessert, just the bits and pieces of life in a kitchen, like the five kilo-block of chocolate I’d just chopped up.

I snapped a photo of the carnage, and just as it finished uploading (“@enaste deep roads chocolate chunk coming up!!”), a text popped up.

—F.H. 2:03 pm  
Do you still have bradh? F. H.

His timing was freakish, and I had to pocket my phone to actually pull the trays from the oven. When I’d got them on the speed rack, I set a pan of clarified butter on the stove to melt.

—Alyn 2:05  
Sugaring them now!

The guy was a complete and total nerd, some friend of the owners and maybe an investor, though I couldn’t quite recall from our introduction. I hadn’t even caught his name at the time, I’d been tempering white chocolate, so I recalled nothing but the harsh angles of his face.

—Alyn 2:12  
Are you sending Merrill down?

—F.H. 2:25 pm  
Perhaps. F. H.

I’d met him on a few other occasions since then, but mostly he just texted to preview the menu. It would have annoyed the shit out of me if Neria’d given my number to anyone else, but he was exactly my kinda nerd— obsessed with the subtle nuance of flavors rather than some molten-chocolate gimme.

When I started steeping the milk for sponge cake with fresh lotus root instead of grinding up dried with the flour, he’d picked up on it right away. Another time I infused Rivani tea into a quart of cream for the caramels on the mignardise plate and he’d left a little note on the back of his receipt, “Have always detested tea, but it’s rather lovely drowned in cream and sugar.”

Customers like that’re one in a million, so even though I had a forty-eight hour policy on special occasion cakes, when he’d come in needing one EOD (“Happy Birthday, Flemeth”) I was willing to bang out a chiffon and dip into my store of frozen buttercream to make it happen.

I’d nearly finished up for the day when he texted again.

—F.H. 2:39 pm  
Anything special today? F. H.

—Alyn 2:40  
Petites fours came out nice. Almond sponge, cherry jam, cherry pits infused in the b’cream, bit of rose in the fondant.

—F.H. 2:41 pm  
Brilliant. F. H.

They kinda were.

I hit the stairs to go up and make sure we didn’t sell out, which seemed unlikely given the early hour. Despite trying our damnedest to be a bakery, folks in the neighborhood had a habit of treating us like a dessert bar and we did most of our business after five.

As expected, the space was empty but for a couple of Orelsians in the corner and a Dalish girl by the window, taking advantage of the natural light to snap a ridiculous number of photos. She must have had one of every—

Fuck.

There was nothing more suspicious than a single patron ordering an obscene number of desserts and taking pictures. Shit, shit, shit. I should have pulled the marshmallows this morning. Two days out and they were skirting along the end of their shelf life, and I’d skipped the vanilla bean for my shortbread because I wasn’t expecting another delivery until next week. Fenedhis.

I slipped behind the counter where Viuus, dapper as hell in a dark Nevarran suit, stood with one of his zombie thrillers hidden inside a copy of the latest _Flour, Inc_ catalogue. 

“Hey, I’ve been waiting for that!”

He had the decency to look a little sheepish. “I did not know.”

“Nobody cares what you’re reading, you don’t have to hide it.”

“Many people are disturbed by the subject.”

I liberated the catalogue from him to reveal a dog-eared copy of _Way of the Necromancer,_ with a half naked woman being groped by a thousand dead hands on the cover.

“Okay, maybe you do need to cover that shit up.”

“Who’s the girl?” he asked, changing the subject and nodding to the front window.

“Not a real camera. Maybe a scout for the paper?”

“I think not.”

I followed his gaze back to the front window, where the elven woman sat grinning like an idiot, her desserts entirely untouched. Just taking pictures, typing furiously, and looking ridiculously pleased with herself. I rolled my eyes.

Fucking food bloggers.

**Author's Note:**

> after the pastry-centric chapter of [Message Sent](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3457130/chapters/8296651) and Deedy's fabulous rendition of [Ellana at Enaste,](http://deedylovescake.tumblr.com/post/116702913029/some-more-fanart-of-aicosus-message-sent-i-was) I was inspired to write up a sweet homage to them both, with a tiny, baby shout-out to [Flowers/Ink](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3146441/chapters/6825575) and the Necromancy specialization card.
> 
> I love this fandom <3


End file.
